Emmanuel Macron announces his departure from the Government

The Economy Minister, Emmanuel Macron, announced to his colleagues at midday Tuesday that he would tender his resignation from the government to Francois Hollande.

Emmanuel Macron "announced to his cabinet and to the directors of the Ministry of Finance in Bercy that he would leave the government after having tendered his resignation in the afternoon to the President of the Republic at the Elysée Palace", several sources at Bercy added to AFP. The Minister is expected to visit the Elysée Palace on Tuesday at 3:00pm to present his resignation to the head of state, according to the same sources.
The departure of Mr Macron had been announced by the daily financial paper Les Echos on Tuesday morning. A graduate of the elite Ecole Nationale d’Administration (Class of 2004), finance inspector, and former deputy secretary general and economic adviser to François Hollande at the Elysée Palace, Mr Macron was appointed Minister of Economy and Digital Economy in August 2014 to replace Arnaud Montebourg.
His time at Bercy was marked by the adoption of a law on "growth and activity", but also by numerous statements criticized by some of the left and a growing rivalry with Prime Minister Manuel Valls, a fellow figure of the reformist wing of the Socialist Party (PS). In April, Emmanuel Macron created the political movement "En Marche" ("On the Move") which held a meeting in Paris on July 12 in which he promised his supporters "victory" in 2017.
On May 18, the Senator-Mayor of Lyon, Gérard Collomb (PS), one of his main supporters, said that Mr Macron would "naturally" run for the Elysee Palace in 2017 if François Hollande did not recover in the polls. The Minister, however, should not participate in the primary organized by the PS, according to Collomb.